Of all the characters in the Easter story, Judas is one of the most enigmatic, and therefore one of the most fascinating. As the man who betrayed Jesus with a kiss and then killed himself, he has been vilified all through history, even more so than the hapless Pontius Pilate. And yet at the same time many people instinctively sympathise with him.
Why did he do it? Was it for the money? Even allowing for the fact that he had always ‘had his fingers in the till’ (John 12:6), this seems unlikely; thirty pieces of silver was a paltry reward in comparison with the eleven hundred that Delilah got for betraying Samson (Judges 16:5). So desperate were the authorities to get rid of Jesus, that Judas could surely have negotiated a better deal if he had wanted to.
The most popular current theory is that he was trying to force Jesus to declare Himself as a political Messiah. Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding a donkey (a clear statement of intent, in the eyes of His contemporaries) and had been popularly acclaimed as the long-awaited King, but then had failed to do what was expected of Him. Instead of cleansing the Temple of all Gentile influences (as Judas Maccabeus had done two hundred years earlier), He had cleared away the corrupt Temple market so that the Gentiles would have somewhere to pray! And then He refused to condemn the paying of taxes to Rome… (Matthew 22:15-21) So maybe Judas thought up a test to discover whether or not Jesus was really the Messiah…
Jesus had also been prophesying the destruction of the Temple, the fall of the holy city of Jerusalem, and even His own death. Did Judas foresee the end of all his hopes and decide to ‘cut and run’?
However obscure Judas’ thinking might be to us, I’m pretty sure that he himself believed that what he was doing was perfectly rational. The fact remains, though, that he was a loner. None of the other disciples seem to have realised what Jesus was really up to, but Judas was the only one whose personal devotion to his Master didn’t override any doubts or misgivings.
“Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born,” says Jesus (Matthew 26:24). These are harsh words from the Man who is willing to forgive everyone involved in His arrest and execution (Luke 23:34). So I suspect that something more than betrayal is going on here; maybe Judas’ action is the symptom of something deeper. The other disciples continually misunderstand, often struggle and sometimes fail miserably – but in the end they always submit to Jesus, and in that submission they always find mercy and forgiveness. Judas, however, thinks he knows better than Jesus; he will not let Jesus be his Lord. When he realises that he has made a fatal miscalculation, he discovers that he cannot go back (Matthew 27:3-5). We find his suicide shocking, but he lived in a ‘shame culture’ where it would have been seen as the only course of action open to him.
Our culture, on the other hand, glorifies independence and the struggle for self-realisation. And perhaps this is why so many of us can identify with Judas. Like him, we would really like to subordinate Jesus to our agenda, to co-opt Him into our cause. We want Him as a means to an end, whether it be money, political power, or (more nobly) recognition for some marginalised group in society. The one thing we don’t want to do is to submit to Jesus’ agenda; we don’t even want to accept His verdict on Judas, because that would mean accepting the same verdict on our own refusal to acknowledge His authority.
But Jesus will not allow us to manipulate Him in this way. We cannot have Him on our own terms, only on His. Despite spending three years in Jesus’ company, Judas fails to ‘get’ this rather fundamental point. That is his real tragedy – don’t let it be yours.
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